Review: British GQ’s “A Black-tie Invitation from Henry Poole”

British GQ’s latest guide to Black Tie couldn’t be more English, drawing as it does on the sage advice of Henry Poole tailors. It is Savile Row through and through, including the preference for grosgrain lapels over satin, waistcoats over cummerbunds, marcella shirts over pleated and turndown collars over wing.

At times like this I like to pretend that Canada is still a Dominion and I’m technically a British subject. (Damn that Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947.)

I can understand how opera pumps can be interpreted as “Over The Top” but for me patent leather is essential. There’s something indescribably refined about wearing footwear intended to be used only indoors, only in the evening and only at the most elegant of occasions. Dress shoes, no matter how well polished, are seen too regularly to provide the same level of sartorial formality and panache.

I happen to like cummerbunds! With the jacket buttoned as it should be, the cummerbund serves the purposes of maintaining the ‘Long V’ effect and hiding the white shirt show-through while bending or sitting. They are also less bulky and more comfortable.